let her walk away
by garskira
Summary: She couldn't be more wrong. Tom knows the truth, but he knows what he has to do even though it kills him to do it. Tom/Liz ONESHOT, maybe slightly OOC


He looked at her, sitting just out of reach, and said, "You know, all this time, you never asked me if I ever really loved you."

He watched her eye twitch. Once, twice. It was her tell, one of many. A painful reminder that she was Liz, not an FBI agent, not an experienced profiler. She was Liz. His Liz.

"Because I know the answer," she replied. Her eyes were so cold.

"I don't think you do," he whispered, shaking his head. A woman who had dedicated her life to knowing people and she didn't know him at all.

Liz turned her back on him and stood, ready to leave him to his thoughts. He desperately wished that he could call to her. Tell her the truth. He wanted to tell her all of the times he thought about running away with her and leaving everything else behind.

He wanted her to know that he learned to cook for her, not for his mission. He mastered the mundane task because he knew she was tired of pad thai every night, not because his job was to steal her heart. And then he would laugh and tell her that he found pleasure in her delight at every meal.

He wanted to tell her that he wanted the baby. Oh god, how he had wanted that little baby. He needed her to know that he had prayed every single night to whatever higher powers there may be for enough time to see his baby grow up. He even made a Pinterest board, for fuck's sake. And he had promised himself that he'd be the best goddamn father the world had ever seen.

He wished he could let her know that since they married, his blank, black nightmares vanished. She scared his bad dreams away. At night, he would drape his arm over her waist, hold her close, and tell himself that he'd see her again in a few hours.

When she said she knew the answer, it hurt. It pierced him even deeper than her bullets had two months earlier. It was a twisting, dark pain, and honestly, he would have preferred more bullets. He knew that the truth would have come out eventually, but he had hoped that he wouldn't have been alive to see it.

So when Reddington pointed the gun between his eyes, he could have almost cried with happiness. He had kept his eyes on the shining, black barrel, because he didn't deserve to look at her. He was scared to look at her. Scared that she was going to be looking on with some kind of dark glee.

And then she stopped Reddington and took him away. Tom knew better than to think that she was showing him mercy, but he couldn't help but hope that Liz still cared about him. A tiny, irrational part of him whispered that there was still a chance for him to salvage the tattered remains of their relationship.

When she chained him to the floor of the dank, metal room, he knew he had no way of dissuading her. What really surprised him, though, was the complete lack of torture. Yeah, she threatened, and the mattress wasn't the most comfortable thing he had slept on, but there was an absence of Liz intentionally hurting him. And Tom knew that she had no qualms about torturing others. From personal experience.

To be honest, he didn't understand. He knew that he had broken her heart; he knew how much she had adored him. He expected beatings because there is probably nothing so satisfying as hitting the shit out of someone. Maybe some humiliation? If he was Liz, he would want to humiliate himself. At least some sleep deprivation? But nothing happened that he would even consider close to torture.

He guessed he didn't know his wife as well as he thought he did.

But he did know a few things.

He knew that she wasn't going to be able to move on with him in her life. He knew that the only way for her to be free was for him to die. And he surprised himself when he admitted that he would do it. He would die if it meant Liz could be happy.

Now he knew what he had to do.

And as Liz walked out, as the heavy door closed behind her, he closed his heart and threw away the key.

* * *

><p>Kind of cheesy? Definitely. I just needed to get out my feelings about Tom. I still have a crazy part of me that says that this relationship can work. All the Tom-haters out there are killing me. But, hey, new episode's less than two weeks away! YAYYY! I'm way too excited!<p>

Love it? Hate it? Wanna throw flaming bricks at it? Let me know!


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